Kim Jong Un is still missing and the world is now starting to wonder exactly where the North Korean leader has been for the last month.
The 31-year-old dictator hasn’t been seen in public for the last few weeks, and when several high-level officials made a surprise visit to South Korea recently to allegedly start peace talks, people suddenly stood up and took notice of his absence.
South Korea’s defence minister, Han Min-Koo, has now revealed that Un isn’t in the country’s capital city, but his declaration hasn’t done anything to stop suggestions that he might be replaced in the coming days.
“As far as I know, [Kim] is staying at a certain place north of Pyongyang. I have received reliable information from our defense intelligence headquarters.”
Last week several reports declared that Pyongyang was now under lockdown, which led many to assume that either a coup attempt had been made against Kim or that some of the country’s leaders had defected. Either way, that didn’t make good reading for the Supreme Leader. According to International Business Times , Toshimitsu Shigemura, a North Korean expert who is also a professor at Waseda University, confirmed that all signs pointed to a lockdown.
“This sort of action suggests there has either been an attempted coup or that the authorities there have uncovered some sort of plot against the leadership. If it is a military-backed coup, then the situation in Pyongyang will be very dangerous, and I have heard reports that Kim has been moved out of the capital.”
Meanwhile other conspiracy theories have started to swirl because of Kim’s prolonged absence, and some of them have even suggested that Kim is currently suffering from severe health problems . Kim is a very heavy smoker, while recent images have also shown that he has gained a hefty amount of weight too.
Footage of him with a limp has also surfaced, which then sparked suggestions that he had gout. Of course at this point, none of this has even remotely been confirmed, and Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae recently told South Korean television that Kim was in fine fettle.
“I said to [North Korean] Secretary Kim Yang Gon while in a car there was a report that [Kim] was in ‘discomfort’ and asked him how was his health, and Secretary Kim said there was no problem at all.”
Until Kim is seen in public again though, rumors over his health will continue to develop and people will assume that his reign might on the brink of concluding.
[Image via ABC News ]